Assembling virus particles to form templates for growing polymers with magnetic properties

Certain molecules have features that cause them to group together in particular ways, known as self-assembly. The formed structures can then be used as templates for growing polymers in ways that would otherwise be difficult to achieve. Researchers from the University of Tsukuba have already shown that helical liquid crystals can be used to grow conducting polymers. Now, they have extended their method to include fd phage liquid crystal platforms. Their findings are published in Journal of Polymer Science.